Soft tissue sheets such as facial tissue sheets are commonly offered as a stack of tissue sheets packed in a dispensing box. The dispensing box has an opening through which the user pulls the tissue sheets. In order to facilitate the removal of the tissue sheets from the dispensing box, the tissue sheets are interfolded, which means that the tissue sheets are folded into one-another, so that they form a chain of tissue sheets being interconnected by folded portions. In this manner, when removing the top tissue sheet from the stack of tissue sheets and pulling the tissue sheet completely through the dispensing opening in the dispensing box, the pulled-out tissue sheet will automatically bring a portion of the next tissue sheet in the stack out through the opening thereby making it readily available for gripping and removing from the dispensing box. The praxis of interfolding tissue sheets in this manner is a convenient way of ascertaining that all of the tissue sheets can be easily removed from the container. There are many types of interfolding, e.g. Z-folding, but neither the type of interfolding, nor the type of tissue is important to the invention.
A dispenser of this type is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,357 (YOH), which discloses a box with an opening overlaid with a plastic film having a curvilinear or “S”-shaped slit. The opening facilitates the dispensing of interfolded tissues from a box by fixing the top sheet in a position extending out through the slit, where it is readily accessible to a user. One problem with this solution is how to extricate an uppermost tissue from the box, as a user may have difficulties in gripping a tissue through the narrow slit of the opening. Also, this type of narrow slit may cause a subsequent tissue to catch or be impeded by friction against the edges of the slit and fall back into the box when a preceding tissue is being pulled out. The document itself discloses problems with tearing of certain types of tissues. Furthermore, the extension of the “S”-shaped curves of the opening are relatively short, giving them an inherent limited movement or flexibility. This may cause problems with the presentation of a tissue, as the edges can not co-operate to any greater extent once they are raised upwards by a tissue being pulled from the box. Instead of holding the tissue in a presentation position the slit opening may end up with the edges one over the other, near the plane of the upper wall, with an interposed tissue lying on top of said wall.
Although some of the above problems may be solved by using a thinner or more flexible film, such a film may give rise to problems in connection with supporting and/or retaining a tissue in a presentation position, or even cause the tissue to fall back into the box.
Hence, there exists a need of improving the dispensing of soft tissue sheets from a stack of tissue sheets, which are packed in a dispensing box.